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M arco DeAngelo.

Fucking Marco DeAngelo!

“I don’t know why you’re so pissed at me; I didn’t ask you to get involved. I don’t want you involved. I want you to leave me alone.” Megan’s words burn my ears as I pull through the gates of my estate.

I should have locked her in the trunk again.

The drive from the city would have been more peaceful.

“Leaving you alone isn’t an option.” It wasn’t much of one to begin with, thanks to her stunt, but now that I know the fucking Italian mob is after her, I really can’t let her walk away.

“This has gotten completely out of hand,” she mutters and turns away, looking out her window as I pull up to the house.

Once I throw it in park, I shove open my door and jump out. I make it most of the way to her door before she has it open and climbs out.

“My bag.” She starts to walk to the trunk, but I grab her arm and tug her toward the steps leading up to the main doors.

“They’ll get it. You need to get upstairs. I have people waiting for me.” Once we’re in the foyer, Yogi greets us.

“Her bag is in the car, so be sure to get it after you park it for the night,” I tell him as I drag her toward the large winding staircase. “She’s going to be in the yellow suite. Bring it up to her,” I instruct, then tug her up the stairs.

“Wait, where is that?” She pulls on my grip. “Not that round room, is it? I won’t go back in there, Alexander.”

She slaps at me, but I don’t answer her.

She can have a fit. Hell, she can throw a whole fucking temper tantrum. I’m not going to respond.

Not because she doesn’t deserve the response I’d give, but because if I do it now, while I’m still seeing red, she will bear the marks of my anger. And I won’t harm her.

As much as I enjoy hurting her, I will never harm her. It makes no fucking sense, but something about this woman triggers my protective instincts. Not just to keep her safe from the DeAngelo bastards, but herself as well.

In the short chaotic time I’ve known her, she’s managed to grip on to me tight and I’m not sure how easy it will be for me to let go.

If I can let her go.

“Alexander, answer me.” She softens her voice as I’m dragging her down the long hallway to the bedroom beside my own.

I push the door open to the room and propel her inside. She catches herself before she falls, then glares at me.

“Answer me,” she demands, her eyes narrowed in anger, her fists tight at her sides as her foot stomps quietly against the carpeting.

“You are going to stay in here, Megan. If you step one toe out of this room before I come for you, I will strip you bare and tie you to my bed.”

She jerks back.

“Why would you do that?”

“Because you keep forgetting a simple fact.” I move toward her with slow deliberate steps. With every inch closer I get, she retreats until the back of her legs hit the massive canopy bed.

I grab hold of her face, pinching her cheeks until they press against her teeth. She winces at what I’m sure is discomfort.

“You are mine now, Megan. Do as I say, and you’ll be fine. Step out of line, and you’ll learn not to do it again.” I push her back a step when I release her and head to the door.

“You have no reason to hate me so much,” she says as I grab the door handle to shut the door behind me.

“Are you going to tell me why you borrowed so much fucking money from the DeAngelo family?”

I wait, watching the wheels turn in that beautiful fucking head of hers. There’s already a pink blotch growing on her throat, telling me nothing she says will be true.

At the last moment, she decides to evade the question instead. “It’s none of your business.”

I squelch the desire to throw her across the bed and force her to tell me everything. The anger is too raw right now.

“Everything about you is my business now, Megan. When I get back, you are going to tell me every last fucking detail of the trouble you’re actually in.”

Her eyes narrow on me. “I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be with you.”

“You gave up all hope of ever getting what you want when you trespassed and tried to take what didn’t belong to you.”

She screws her face into a glower.

“Not one toe.” I remind her and yank the door shut, leaving her alone in the bedroom and me outside in the hall, willing my anger at her recklessness to calm.

Something hits the other side of the door.

I almost smile, but then I remember the name Marco DeAngelo and grit my teeth as I make my way down to my office.

* * *

“What the hell happened?” I ask the moment I step into my office where Ivan and Kaz are helping themselves to my brandy.

Kaz sits in an armchair, one arm draped over the rolled leather arm and one foot hooked over his opposite knee.

“He’s dead.” The crystal decanter top clinks as Ivan drops it in place.

“Yes. I understood your text. How?” I join him at the bar tucked into the corner of the office and pour three fingers of brandy for myself.

“He collapsed.” Kaz gestures with his hand. “One minute he was standing there, telling a boring story, the next he was flat on his back, eyes rolled to the back of his head.” He mimics the motion with his arm, making it look like a tree fell in the woods.

“Why did he collapse?” I down half my drink, trying to wash away the irritation the distracting woman upstairs has caused.

“Don’t know yet. The coroner said we’d have a cause of death by morning.” Ivan brings his glass to the couch. “Nothing happened. The man just keeled over and died.”

“Dexter Thompson was thirty-five years old, Ivan. How does a thirty-five-year-old just drop dead?” I question. Two years younger than me, and he’s just gone in a breath. It’s unnerving.

“He did have some heart condition,” Kaz offers. “Last year, when we were in that meeting with him for the build on the west side, he stopped in the middle of talking about a contribution to some organization to get a pill bottle out of his drawer. He said it was for his heart.”

“Okay, so say his heart gave out. There’s nothing to worry about, then. Right?” Ivan questions.

If only that were the case. But there’s a woman upstairs whose involvement with Marco DeAngelo suggests Thompson’s death is more than just natural causes. The timing is too coincidental. And I don’t believe in coincidences.

“We’ll have to wait until we get the cause of death. Even if he did die of natural causes, we still have someone who was trying to get information on him.” I grab the folded-up paper out of my pocket, unfold the thick stationery, and hand it to Ivan.

He sits up straighter, noticing right away the emblem watermarked on the back. It’s subtle. Someone who wasn’t looking for it would probably miss it.

The Obsidian logo.

Ivan’s eyebrows shoot up, then he hands it to Kaz, who frowns.

“Debts will be repaid?” Kaz reads the top of the stationery. “What is this?”

“That’s what Megan Reed was given as an introduction to the job of sneaking into our records room.” I finish off my drink and pour another, dropping a ball of ice from the bucket.

“I assume you called this number.” Kaz waves the paper.

“I did. No longer in service.” I lean against my desk.

“It worked when she called it, though?” Ivan questions with a wrinkled forehead. “And where was she supposed to drop it off?”

“They were supposed to send drop-off instructions, but she didn’t get them.” I take a breath. “When I took her back to her place tonight to get the note, her apartment had been turned over,” I explain.

“Turned over? You think the person behind this did it?” Kaz asks.

“No.” I put my drink down and grip the edge of my desk as I lean back against it. “I think Marco DeAngelo’s men did it.”

“Marco DeAngelo?” Ivan’s jaw tightens. “That Italian fuck who sells that laced shit on the streets?”

“Yeah, that’s the one. That’s his main money, but in this case, it’s his loan business that’s got her in a mess,” I explain.

“He lent her money?” Kaz questions. “How much?”

“She owes seventy-five grand.”

“What did she need with that kind of money?” Ivan questions.

“Not sure yet.” I will have my answers by morning, though. “But she says credit card debt.”

I grab my drink, wishing it could give me some relief from the stress of the day. But the little burn from the brandy is nothing compared to the irritation and lust I’m fighting, thanks to that black-haired pixie with the most unusual white streaks sulking upstairs.

I should tie her to my bed and take my belt to her ass again for being such a damn distraction.

Just thinking of it only makes my cock hard again.

“So she hasn’t given you much in the way of answers?” Ivan grins, the bastard.

“You think this is funny.”

He nods.

“I think it’s amusing, yes. Alexander Volkov hasn’t been able to squash a simple problem like this within twenty-four hours?” He chuckles. “Where is she now?”

“Where do you think?” I ask with a heavy sigh.

“In your bed?” Kaz winks.

“No.” I clench my teeth. “She’s upstairs. I came down to get you two up to speed and find out what happened with Dexter. Now that I have, I’ll deal with her and get this whole fucking thing resolved.”

“Hmmm.” Kaz gets to his feet. “I’m sure it will be that easy.”

I shove off the desk. “You two can see yourselves out.”

I grit my teeth. They’re right. I should have had this wrapped up. I’ve let her get away too long without giving me all the answers she has wrapped up in her little mind.

If she had been a man, she wouldn’t be tucked into a warm bed tonight. She’d be hanging from the ceiling in the pit.

I’ve been too soft.

I climb the stairs, flexing and clenching my hands.

That ends.

She’s going to tell me exactly why she borrowed that money from the DeAngelo family. And she’s going to retrace every fucking step she took since she found that letter on her desk.

The lights in the hallway are dimmed, but I see the bedroom door clearly, and my resolve is set as stone.

No more half answers.

She will tell me everything and I will fix this fucking problem and get back to my fucking life.

I get to the door of the room I left her in and throw it open, expecting to find her lying in the bed or pacing the room.

My blood runs cold at the sight before me.

The window is open, the fall night breeze blowing the curtains into the room.

There is no sign of Megan Reed.

She’s gone.